I am so tired by the time I reach my apartment, I don't even think of food. The gray haze has enveloped all but the bobbing idea of sketching out cursed lines on my study floor. I shed my bag and shoes by the door, eschewing to turn on lights, and stumble my way to the study, the sheaf of papers clutched in my hands. I orient vaguely to the worn-down couch there and collapse onto it, eyeing the figures scrawled on the papers. Mephistopheles, I mouth, eyes tracing the lines. My eyes are too heavy to stop them from closing.
When I wake, it's to the thunderous roar of the city snowplow passing my building. Sprawled as I am on the couch, I can feel my neck sore from having been fixed in place, and my mouth is parched. I can hear the peaceful click of the heater in the morning air. I struggle upright, reaching up to rub at my face, only to find I'm still holding a paper. Squinting, I rear back enough to allow the shapes to come into focus.
Mephistopheles. I smile at it. A bit of that same, strange, forbidden joy rises in my chest. I have a project for the weekend. I put the paper gently on the worn couch, and stand, listening to my joints crack. I'm absolutely not checking my emails. It's only going to be all 800 students asking for a grade change.
On my way to the kitchen for some water, I prompt my computer out of sleep. May as well check and see the boundaries and limits of this purification and fasting period. I have enough resources bookmarked to bring together a more comprehensive picture of what they expected to be a fasting and purification period. Some of it would be obvious-- no sex, no food, no alcohol-- but then there were always unexpected rules that would have made sense during the time.
I gulp down two glasses of water before I'm slaked and bring a third back to my desk. I'm in a surprisingly light mood, in spite of last night. A small hint of the reason for my depression last night-- Dear Doctor Faust-- rises to my mind, but I bury it in mounds of notes. It is late afternoon by the time I raise my head from my work. My head feels clearer than it has in months. I have another full 24 hours fast, and then I begin to prepare for the ritual. Something small and dark dislodges itself in the back of my brain, scampering around and whispering at me that this is insane, I need to get a grip, get something to eat, check my emails, face reality. I close my eyes against the mental onslaught.
What am I doing?
When I open my eyes, I can see the late afternoon sun slanting in through my study windows, staining the room with an amber light. The frantic inner deluge of recriminations is silenced by the beauty. I find myself hitching a sigh.
Who cares? Who's here to notice? What harm is in a weekend of escapist nonsense?
I reflect ruefully perhaps this isn't as harmless to my mental health as escapist nonsense, but really it affects no one but myself. I know already how all of this will play out. I'll fast for another day, work myself through the orderly spectacle of the arcane, and by the end of it probably feel weirdly refreshed. Just challenging myself to do something radically different, something ordered and meaningful with an ephemeral purpose, should be enough to wrench myself out of the gray haze.
All the same, I feel fatigue dragging me back. It's the same at the end of every semester since grad school, the scurry from November to December, but now as a professor that down time has narrowed to a weekend or two around Christmas. I had thought by this point I would be famished, but really I don't feel anything. Perhaps a shower would be good, though, I reflected.
I thumb through notices on my phone as I scuff through the hallway to the bathroom, reading but not understanding the words. I see news alerts, emails from names I realize are my colleagues and students, one certainly from Carl, but I can't seem to focus on the text. I deposit the phone with a clatter onto the bathroom sink and start the taps in the tub in nearly the same move. I hadn't bothered moving out of this relatively cramped apartment in the years since I've started teaching at the university. Sometimes I reflect that a cramped bathroom wasn't what I had been looking forward to as an ambitious young grad student.
I shuck off my shirt, and am startled by the reflection I see out of the corner of my eye. I turn more fully to face the mirror, and my startlement peaks. My eyes seem hollow, the cheeks sunken. The tendons of my neck stand out in a way that I didn't think I had seen two days ago. The small bones of my chest seem to push through the skin, catching the fading daylight. I watch as a cold chill washes down over my arms, the fine dark hairs on my forearms lifting.
The hell with this. I turn away, determined not to think about this. When did you last eat, John? I push the thought away, mostly because I realize I can't remember the last thing I ate. The water is warm, the couch in my study beckons to me. Maybe I'll get some more reading in before I fall asleep.
I ended up reading more than I thought I would, occasionally silencing the notices on my phone. I never used to get so many calls, but I was so absorbed in the material, I didn't give my actions a second thought. I don't plummet into sleep until my eyes fall on the Mephistopheles paper again. My phone blinks to life for a moment; it's almost midnight. My sleep is absolute and dreamless. It feels like falling down an endless pit, and waking up feels like the moment before you hit the bottom.
I find my stash of chalk that I absently pocketed during lectures over the previous years. My classrooms invariably have the old chalkboards, and so going from lecture to lecture with chalk on hand was easier, invariably deposited in a jar on my desk when I got home.
I'm in the middle of pushing the chalk bits into one pile when a strange, almost manic glee hits me. What will you wish for? I stop my small errand for a moment and let my head hang, a bout of giggles seizing me. What will I wish for? For my work to be recognized. For a pay raise. For a house, all my own. Petty, petty something hisses inside of me.
A bubble arises from the flat gray haze of a sea that looms in my brain. Why?
Indeed why. Why do we still not understand? Why do we not have the cure to diseases that have lived since the dawn of humanity? Why do we hate those different from us? Why can't we help? Why can't we stop hurting each other? Why?
I will ask to understand. It's a hollow kind of thought, almost a sigh. The idea fills me with a sudden swell of emotion, a counteraction to the acknowledgement of helplessness and hopelessness. I press my hands to my face, as though to push out, push back the stinging in my eyes. It doesn't matter.
No, it doesn't. I drop my hands and resume sorting through the pile until I've found one of appropriate length. Good. I spent a few moments affixing this to the length of dowel I'd unearthed from god knows where. The rest of my ingredient gathering is marked by similar waffling. Do I use the city's tap water? The water from my filter? I decide on distilled water, for no other reason than it seemed a close enough ingredient than what would have been available in medieval times. Perhaps well water would have been best. The earth I obtain by guiltily stealing out to the small planters kept by the backdoor, maintained by the landlord. The ground is still covered in a thick blanket of snow, and I find myself momentarily transfixed by the tranquility. Even the sounds of passing traffic are so muffled they're almost inaudible. The air component, I have determined, will most likely simply be the smoke from a bundle of herbs with occult properties, and the fire will be from the wick of a candle.
I've pushed all the furniture in my study against the walls, and flipped the worn Persian rug so a large enough bare patch is revealed to inscribe a circle, and the glyphs. Standing in the center of the room, I'm struck with a wave of immediacy. I look up, and glance around the room. Everything seems strange, just slightly wrong. As if I've been thrust into an almost perfect copy of my world. Outside, the snow has begun to fall again, massive white flakes bright against the deepening gloom.
I gather the materials in the room and feel a ripple of wrongness course through me. I shudder, but bring the grainy photocopy to my face. This should be vellum, I think, disjointedly. What is the modern age but a cynical cry into the dark, a rail against the wonder we once possessed.
There were no demons. There was no hell. I was chanting Latin in an urban apartment after midnight, dissolution and loneliness and dissatisfaction spurring this ache in my chest that made me want to hurl myself off a cliff.
I swallow hard. My mouth is dry, again, but I begin the words. They sound flat and unimportant in the air. If I had expected something electric, something forbidden, to sweep its way from another place, another world, I was sorely mistaken. Even if it was just a vague part of me.
I don't know if it is this realization that depresses me, or the futility of everything of the day. My throat tightens, and I choke on a word. I swallow again and repeat it, my voice thick.
I hate this. I hate myself.
The words are pouring from my mouth like it's a plea, the ecclesiastical Latin clumsy on my tongue. I stoop and sprinkle some of the earth on the north point of the circle, the dirt pattering on the floorboards. The sound is so present that it hammers down my sense of self loathing. This is insane. I can't smother a sudden sigh. I sprinkle a bit of distilled water to the west, and I light the candle, and settle it so the flame doesn't blow out at the south.
Finally, I light the little bundle of herbs to a smolder and waft it to the east of the circle. The acrid smell tickles the back of my throat. I open a gate, I think, separate from the Latin still trickling from my lips. I open a gate for the spirits of the east.
"Mephistopheles," I say, and I feel the corners of my eyes stinging.
The heating pipes tick softly in the gloom. The lambent glow of the snow outside paints the walls a dull gray. I can hear my pulse thudding in my ears. Nothing changes.
I shut my eyes. A swell of disappointment in myself crests and breaks against the inside of my chest. I should be grading papers. I should be checking my syllabus for next term. "Mephistopheles," I say instead. I can't tell if it's an apology or a recrimination.
I can taste the salt of tears slipping down the back of my throat. The city plows hush by outside. The smoke of the candle and the herbs mingle in the air. The apartment feels cold, in spite of the heaters. I force back a sigh and open my eyes.
Across from me, a vague outline, black against the dark gray of the room beyond.
I jump back, a terror ripping through my chest that I'd never felt before. The shadowy outline does not move. Correction-- it moves, but only sways slightly in place, like a fighter centering his balance before he launches himself at his opponent. In the darkness, I watch as two perfectly round circles prick out from the head of the figure, like two eyes gleaming out at me. I draw in a shuddering breath and swallow. I can barely hear my own words when I saw, "I command you... to appear as a man."
The lights in the study suddenly switch on and shimmer in a wave across the room, shutting off as the light travels across the small space, until they concentrate on the lamp at the side table. It illuminates the side of a young man, who looks rather bored and fed up with all this.
We eye each other across the room for a minute, before I whisper, "Who are you?"
He fixes me with an incredulous look before he chastises, "You went through all that, and you don't even know my name." He sounds offended. I don't blame him.
I reach up to press a hand against my eyes, at least 70 percent certain I'm hallucinating. "Of course I know your name. Mephistopheles."
The young man's voice is smug as a cat when he says, "Well done, Faustus." He still sounds slightly condescending. I don't blame him for this either. It sounds a bit like my inner voice when I talk to myself, to be honest.
There's a beat of silence, and I think, almost hopefully, that maybe he's gone, and this really has just been a hallucination, but he asks quietly, sounding slightly impatient, "Well? Why am I here?"
I drop my hand. "Why are you here," I ask back, half to myself.
"Well." Mephistopheles gives a one-shouldered shrug. "That was an awful lot of decrying God you just did." He's treating me with an insincere look of sincerity, one eyebrow slightly raised. "I'm guessing all that was just posturing, then?"
I wave my hand at the chalk lines intersecting the planks of my study, the candles, the incense, the water spattered on the floor, the soil scattered and dotting the white lines. "This. All this, this was nothing?" It's my turn to be offended.
Mephistopheles shrugs again. He hasn't moved from his spot, half illuminated by the small lamp. "I mean, we're all very impressed by your fast and your attention to detail. But really, even for a godless kind of time we're living in, that was a magnificent denial of the divine." He lifts his hands and gives a polite round of claps. I'm torn between offense and humor. "Honestly, that's the quickest route to get Lucifer's attention."
I roll my shoulders from the tension and soreness of sitting crouched over these signs for hours. "So we're past that point," I muse out loud. "Not that damnation really means anything." Across the room, Mephistopheles tilts his head at me, overtly curious. I meet his gaze, more or less certain this is all just a break of sanity. But if it isn't (what if it isn't Faust, what have you done?), what's the harm in asking questions. "This Lucifer. Who is he?"
Mephistopheles withdraws, leans back on his heels. He's bored again. "My boss, you could say. Has a whole pack of spirits. A drove, if you will."
His modern affectation is charming. I smile at this. "So Lucifer was in fact a fallen angel?" I do wonder at the truthfulness of the various accounts of Lucifer's nature.
A slightly cruel smile tilts itself on Mephistopheles' lips, like a knife balanced in a thief's hand. "Oh, indeed. Cast out of paradise with as much ceremony as taking the trash out to the curb." He twiddles a little wave into the darkness. I realize the smile does not reach his eyes. His eyes are expressionless and dark, but something in the very back glimmers there. I feel a cold prickle rise on the back of my neck.
"And why is he in hell, now?" My voice is insubstantial. It is drowned out by the silence.
The smile twists a little more and he arcs himself to me like a dancer. "You should know very well, Faustus. Pride dwelleth in the hearts of all men, but in this age more than most." He gives me a slow conspiratorial wink. My chill deepens.
"And why are you with him?" I'm almost certain I haven't spoken. My throat aches.
His smile grows, and his eyes are flat. "I defied God, like Lucifer. That's the motto of hell, Faust." He lifts his hands in a slight shrug, and his smile falters. "You get what you deserve."
There's a bit of internal logic that strikes the back of my brain, like a moth batting against the glass of a lantern. I struggle to unearth it. "If you're damned, why then are you here?" I'm almost relieved to hear the normal, somewhat crackled tone of lectureship I'd cultivated over the years. Somewhere in my brain, I had apparently decided this was all an intellectual exercise. Excellent.
Mephistopheles still smiles, but the smile is sad instead of deranged. "What makes you think I'm out of hell?"
Hell is us, after all. I close my eyes against the unbidden phrase, a sudden sadness washing over me. I'm almost certain I'm hallucinating all of this. I'm going to open my eyes, and the lamp will be casting its light on the side table and nothing else. I open my eyes, and Mephistopheles is looking at me, no longer smiling, and now his eyes have something in them-- pity?-- that I can't understand. I refuse to acknowledge the tears webbed in the corner of my eyes. I swallow back the thickness in my throat and offer, "Well. I guess that's it."
"Is it?" Mephistopheles watches me attentively, as though he's a teacher waiting for his student to arrive at the answer. Is it?
I nod, reaching up despite myself and palming away the moisture trickling down my cheeks. "So will you serve me?" Why did this feel like a suicide note? More horrifyingly, why did this feel like a middle school crush asking for a date?
Mephistopheles fetches a long sigh and shakes his head minutely. Clearly I've missed something. "I can't serve you without my boss saying I can."
I can't stifle the huff of a laugh that makes its way from my mouth, even as I'm thumbing away tears. "I have a doctorate, you know. I have the capacity to understand you at greater than the fifth grade level." Mephistopheles gives me a withering smirk. "I'll keep that in mind, Doctor Faust."
I press my hands against my face, suddenly wanting this all to be over. I need to say the words though. I need to say the magic words. "So go back to your master and get a permission slip, I guess. Come back to me at midnight, and tell me your decision. Tell him... tell him I'll wager my soul. "
I hear Mephistopheles give an almost inaudible scoff. Then he is gone, completely and entirely, with as little ceremony as morning sliding to midday. His sudden absence is somehow more alarming than his appearance. I glance around the study, a stab of panic shivering through me. Had this all been my imagination? I only realize the one component of his presence after my breathing becomes more rapid, and I inhale a strange scent, like hot metal and blood. It's so out of place that I know he must have left it behind. I try to comfort myself with that, instead of dwelling on the lurking idea it may have been something more organic and sinister.
Looking around me, the chalk lines, the candle, the smoking herbs, all seem far more threatening and sinister than they had at the outset, like they're symptoms of some great unraveling. Something shameful. I'm tempted to sweep the chalk lines away, but I can't bear to touch them. I step out of the circle and step across the room and out into the quiet emptiness of my the hallway. It's like walking into fresh air from being in close quarters. The silence out here is restful, and underscored with the soft whoosh of wind around the house and the tink of the heaters.
I realize my mouth is parched, and I go to the kitchen, electing to ignore the light switches. The microwave clock reads 11:45. Had I really been conjuring for hours? I pour a glass of water from the pitcher and drink, surprised at my thirst.